Friday, May 8, 2009

Well, Celestron has gone and done it, made the heavens available to the average person on the street with their inexpensive, easy to use, well built scope.

Got mine yesterday, at just $49.99 US or $62.49 CAD, you just can't go wrong.

Look at the family on the box, they are frigging thrilled, probably because when they pulled the scope out of the box it was already assembled.

Just had to put the eyepiece in the eyepiece holder, total time 2 minutes, and that's with me popping nearly all the bubbles in the bubble wrap.

So what do you get for your money? You get the scope and 2 eyepieces giving you 15x and 75x magnification and you get to show people you have over for casual events to your humble abode awesome views of the Moon, Saturn, Mars, Venus as well as bright deep sky objects like star clusters from your light polluted backyard, who do you know that can say that?

Very portable, and as far as storage, store it in plain sight, you can see from above image how cute, yet professional it looks, you'll be the talk of your friends, family and neighbors. So it is inexpensive, comes assembled, can store it anywhere, looks cute, but what's it got under the hood?..... well nothing......it's not a car....duh. But what is does have is the ability to grab'n'go, no fancy set up time required, hey that makes a big difference, could be the difference between using it or not, and this is coming from someone, moi, that has had literally a gazillion scopes... well maybe not literally, but have had lots. I unpacked, assembled and was outside with the scope on my car trunk looking at the Moon, and...and imaging with my wife's little camera pointed at the eyepiece,(image below) total elapsed time, around 4 minutes!!

FirstScope First Image, 15x

FirstScope Second Image 75x

FirstScope and Canon 40D

I have not been approached by Celestron to do a review, all me, I thought I should tell anyone and everyone I can about this little guy, if you are looking for your first scope but don't want to spend a lot of money, this is the scope for you, I was very happy with the quality of the views of various heavenly bodies I pointed the scope at, including Saturn (which by the way is worth the price of admission alone). Astro-Nuts was with me trying it out as well, he liked it so much he went and ordered one.

Also available for this scope is an accessory kit which comes with 2 more eyepieces giving you 24x and 50x, a Moon filter, which allows for better imaging and viewing during a Full Moon, could have used that last night, a carrying case for your scope, a 5x24 finder scope and a CD ROM filling you in on the basics of astronomy, familiarizing you with stars, planets and constellations and gives you the ability to print off star charts, for only $24.94 CAD. Even though I still have a gazillion scopes, I chose this one for a quick Photon Phix and to take it with me in the car when going out of town, again grab'n'go, very cool, definitely 5 out of 5 stars.

A very well done review. Like you said, Celestron should have called you for a product review.

Now about that picture of the moon, although it looked nice and clear, it really didn't show all that much detail. Was this on the lowest power? I certainly hope that when it's pointed at Mars, or Saturn, there is a lot more to see in the image. But I get it, it's a starter scope.

WOW Bob ... every time I turn around you seem to have a new toy. Want to adopt me? LOL Love the part about the bubbles. BTW I'm back...but slowly. Lots to do this summer but will try to post now and then. I did send out a friend request but someone seems to be ignoring me :-)~JD

Hi swubird, it's all about contrast. When the Moon is full it is hard to image so bright plus I couldn't adjust the ISO settings on my wife's camera. So what I did is took shot with my Canon 40D, I could adjust the ISO settings on it to give you a better idea the detail you get, just as good as my most expensive scope.\m/\m/

That Moon shot looks great. Now I'm really anxious to get my FirstScope. I'm guessing it will be here next week. Hopefully the weather will start cooperating a bit more. Anyway, good shot and talk to you soon.

Thanks Colin for answering flits concern. I was pretty excited when using the 3x barlow I was able to prime focus my Canon , the Moon looks cool through the scope and camera, opens up numerous possibilities for people with cameras, effectively giving you a 900mm lens for cheap.\m/\m/

Thanks Jesse, I hear you about people looking for cool scopes as opposed to scopes that don't really look like ones, but hey once you look through the little scopes eyepiece, you'll be hooked, especially since it only took a couple minutes to set up!!\m/\m/

Excellent!!! Very nice write up on this little scope. I will pass this information on to the McAuliffe-Shepard Discover Center science store - I am sure they would love to add this scope to their new store - they may even get a few to have on hand for public observation nights when they open the main observatory - then if the public uses them and enjoys them, send them to the store to buy their own to take home. Thanks for sharing

Hey Bob I will definitely keep the Celestron FirstScope in mind. I would love to have one of those at my home too and gaze at the stars and the moon especially. Thanks for the review, it really helps from someone who had many scopes [how many if you don't mind asking]. Anna :)

Thanks Anna, I think you would get some good use of of it. I have 5 scopes now, my workhorse being my Meade 200lxr Schmidt Cassegrain, I also have a Solar Hydrogen Alpha scope to view flares and prominences on the Sun.\m/\m/

Hey Bob I have some 10 foot PVC telescopes in the back yard I will sell you. Of course there will be some extras you will have to acquire yourself such as lenses brackets tripod mounts... you know stuff like that lol. JK Bob!

Hi there bob. I've got a firstscope to and like it very much.I'm very impressed with the pictures you made trough the firstscope. I'd like to know how you attached your canon SLR to it.. To put it differently: What do I need to make pictures trough the firstscope! (b.t.w. I have a nikon slr)

I just got this today at the Big 5 store down the street. I tested its daytime terestial capeabilities impressed me greatly. I am now waiting impatiently for the sun to go down so that i can look at the moon and the stars tonight. I am also a storm chaser durring the summer and i find this very compact and convieniant to take on my chases and get close up views of storm structure and to verify possible tornadoes. This is an awesome telescope.

I just wanted to say thank you as well for the review. I found it helpful. I was lucky enough to get a USD$15.00 discount code from Amazon, who sell it for 45.00 to start with, so the final price for me was 30 bucks, with free shipping. I haven't started looking for the info yet, but I too wonder how you take pictures through it as I am sure I'll want to do that.

Thanks for this thread. It was very helpful in deciding on the Celestron FirstScope, as my first telescope. Just want to let folks know that they selling for as little as $32.29 thru amazon with free shipping. I find it hard to believe they've not sold out at that price...yet?! Very happy with mine.

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For starters, look at the other side of the box it came in. A nice big close up picture of Jupiter. In reality, you see a tiny white disk for Jupiter and points of light for its moons. Sure, I didn't expect a Hubble-like image of Jupiter but it's that kind of false advertising that should have made me suspicious.

It's a pretty pointless scope because it's only really good for looking at the moon, but you can do that with a good pair of binoculars for the same price- plus you can also use the binos for looking at terrestrial things. Oh, sure, Celestron has an owl on the box too suggesting that the scope is useful for terrestrial viewing, but being a RELFECTOR it's UPSIDE down, plus slow and unwieldy to lock on to a target.

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Since gallelio had invent the first telescop it has been one of the important matchine for those who are working with the other planets,stars etc..Celestron firstscope is the latest edition of telescope.will look after for some more updates..

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